Journal Entry for Thursday, Mar 15th

Bidding Farewell (Click to enlarge) Though it seemed like a short visit, combined with their earlier stop three weeks ago, we got to spend nearly a week with Bonnie and Paul. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Paul is leaving Monday for Hawaii to stay with his sister for a while, they could have stayed longer. Oh well, we were glad to have the time we were able to spend with them. I made them one last breakfast before bidding them goodbye and a safe journey back to Tahoe. Oh yea, that was the other thing; there was a big snowstorm coming into Tahoe late this evening and they wanted to get back and over the mountain before it hit. As we know, having made this trip several times over the past nine years, it’s a long, uneventful drive and were both happy to get a text message around 7:00 saying that they arrived home safely.

Journal Entry for Wednesday, Mar 14th

Valley of Fire State Park Bonnie & I at Rogers Spring After being up until nearly midnight talking again, we all slept in and had another late breakfast. Being a gorgeous sunny day, we decided to drive them to the Valley of Fire State Park near Overton for an afternoon of picture taking. We took Lake Mead’s North Shore Road up and back which provided numerous sightseeing and picture taking opportunities. They were both amazed at the beautiful and colorful mountains and geology along the way and snapped hundreds of pictures. Along the way we stopped at the Redstone Loop Trail and Rogers Spring. We then spent several hours having a picnic lunch and taking pictures inside the Valley of Fire State Park.  By late afternoon we had only taken them through 1/2 of the park, yet decided it was time to head back home. Paul and I played with pictures on my computer while Connie and Bonnie sat in the living room and chatted. I then made us dinner.  We then relaxed over the final pre-recorded episode of “Castle” and banana splits. By the time we headed off to bed it had been a long day and we were all, once again, exhausted.

Journal Entry for Tuesday, Mar 13th

Bonnie and Paul's Arrival Linksys Wireless-G Router After a long grueling day of driving, Bonnie and Paul arrived exhausted around 9:30 last night. We talked for an hour and a half, letting them fill us in on their two weeks in Kansas vising her son Christian and his wife Christina and their visit to her friends John and Mary in Arizona on their return trip. Even though everyone was tired, it provided them a chance to “wind down” from the day’s long drive. Today, after letting everyone sleep in until mid-morning, I cooked everyone a big made to order breakfast. By the time we finished cleanup of the breakfast dishes it was nearly noon. They both felt that they would rather stay home and rest versus going out, so Connie and Bonnie spent the day conversing in the living room while Paul and I spent the day in the den discussing photography “stuff” and trying to hook up a Linksys Wireless-G broadband router that someone had given me some time back. The first thing we realized was that he had not given me the units power adapter, so we had to make a trip to Radio Shack and spend $26 on a new adaptor before we could even get started. From here everything seemed to go downhill. Even though we got is working, we had trouble configuring it and making it password protected. When we finally called it quits, I made us dinner. After dinner we sat down and watch two episodes of Castle that we had recorded and saved for them. Had some ice cream for dessert and finally headed off to bed once again.

Journal Entry for Sunday, Mar 11th

Young Artist’s Concert Today was another beautiful day, clear and sunny and near 80 degrees. Because it was so nice we decided to head up to the Henderson Pavilion to see and listen to the Henderson Symphony Orchestra’s Young Artist’s Concert. They have one of these every year, featuring some of the most gifted children from the Las Vegas area, ranging in age from 12 to 18. In addition to a Mozart overture by the symphony, we heard three violin concertos, a trumpet concerto, a flute concerto, and a really outstanding piano concerto. Having won all kinds of awards, several of these kids have been performing since they were three and four years old; one has been in an orchestra since she was seven. As usual, it was excellent.

Journal Entry for Saturday, Mar 10th

NASCAR Sam’s Town 300 Well the last update we got from my sister indicated that they would probably be her sometime on Monday, but that things could change. On the way back from visiting her son Christian in Kansas, they stopped to visit John and Mary, some longtime friends of hers in Tucson Arizona. While they were there, Mary had a stroke sometime today. Good heavens! We hope she's all right. Connie and I sat around most of the day watching golf and the NASCAR Sam's Town 300 that was being held today at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The third stop of the Nationwide series, the Sam's Town 300 features a 1.5 mile track with 200 laps and 300 miles.Yesterday, while playing poker at GVR, I passed up four free tickets. Even though the weather was great making it a beautiful day for a race, the parking and the traffic getting there and back is always horrible. It was a pretty good race with no real serious accidents. There were a total of 43 drivers competing for the chance to get part of the total purse that has been valued at over $1 million. Car number 6, a Ford Mustang, driven by Ricky Stenhouse Jr., took first place for $107,863.

Journal Entry for Saturday, Mar 3rd

Out With The Old – In With The New Picked up Jim Herring this morning in preparation for taking him to the airport later this afternoon for his return home. Instead of making a late brunch, we sat around talking for a while and finally decided to go up the street to the Elephant Bar where we treated Jim to a nice lunch before heading to the airport. Jim and Connie both had the Chicken Marsala, while I tried their new Caprese Style Chicken PIccata. Both meals were very good. It was a nice leisurely lunch and a nice relaxing way to end his visit. We dropped Connie off at home and then headed to the airport. We stayed home the rest of the day and all day Sunday waiting to hear from my sister, who was suppose to be arriving sometime next week.